Coffee Marketing

Marketing your Coffee Business in March

February 13th, 2011, by MyCoffeePro

Did you know there are month-long celebrations every March and not just Saint Patrick’s Day?

Welcome to the list of March Marketing Ideas … with no shamrocks or leprechauns in sight.

March is the Month to Celebrate:

American Red Cross – got some red marketing materials left over from February/Valentine’s? Use them up in your American Red Cross promotions.
American-Irish Heritage – think far bigger than just Saint Patrick’s Day and focus on true Irish-American heritage, it’s history and culture.
Music In Our Schools Month (MIOSM) – Help to keep music programs alive and well in our school systems.
National Craft Month – Created by the Craft & Hobby Association in 1994, it was designed to help people learn about and re-discover the joy of crafting and all its many benefits. My friend Jennifer (dailydemitasse.com) crafts coffee cozies and more at 365 Days of Coffee Crochet.
National Nutrition Month – Focus attention on the importance of making informed food choices and developing sound eating and physical activity habits. What’s the healthiest items on YOUR menu?
National Women’s History Month – In 1987, Congress declared March as National Women’s History Month in perpetuity. Educate your customers on women’s history in coffee origins countries … good and bad.
Youth Art Month – Do I see you teaching those kids the intricacies and joy of creating Latte Art?

There also happen to be a litany of week-long celebrations in March as well as individual celebration days too.

And let’s not forget about March 20th, the first day of Spring … which merits it’s own blog post for Spring Marketing Ideas.

7 Local Marketing ideas for your Coffee Shop

December 12th, 2010, by MyCoffeePro

Ronette Reynolds over at Barista Exchange recently posted this:

I’m currently working at a shop that was opened up a little less than a year ago.

It’s located in a golf resort that is also an upscale housing community. This is the first winter, and with just the home-owners to bring in business at the moment, business has BOMBED. We made a total of $35 in sales yesterday. This is completely opposite (or so I’ve been told, as I just started working) of the summertime sales, when resort guests are around.

Now, we are outside of a town of about 35,000 (maybe more), and located just off the main highway. I’m wondering what kind of marketing strategies I should look into (I’ve been given the job to research) to get the winter business up and going. What are some of your advertising musts? What about Facebook, Twitter, etc? Do you hire outside of the company or do it yourself?

After reading her post and knowing from experience that many shops face dilemmas very similar to this one, I thought it would be nice to share a small list of ideas on how I would tackle this marketing problem if I were in the same situation (the theme is local, local, local):

*UPDATE*

Start-up a Customer Database! Too many small business owners just don’t do that, but there’s no excuse not to with so many options and price-points available. A free CRM is ZohoCRM, but there’s a good comparison at BusinessInsider.com. I personally use Act by Sage, Outlook & OneNote because those fit best into my work-flow on my tablet pc (which I LOVE).

14 Coffee Marketing ideas for Direct Mail & More

November 26th, 2010, by AimItMedia

As a small business owner in the coffee industry, you can’t afford to lose money on wasteful or ineffective marketing. Therefore you should invest in creating a customer database and then use that database as your core marketing tool. With your customer database in place you’re ready to start creating your direct mail campaigns.

Direct Mail marketing remains popular because of it’s incredible value. You can design multiple versions of a direct mail campaign, assign a unique identification code to each version and then test different elements of those designs and measure their success … all for pennies on the dollar. Then it’s just a matter of refining your design to increase the response rate even more and soon you’ll hone the ultimate direct mail weapon for your marketing arsenal … that you can use for years to come.

The industry average on response rates for direct mail campaigns hovers right around 2%.

What do you think is one of the cheapest, yet most effective, direct mail pieces to send? Postcards.

You can also apply and use all these tips for Email Campaigns … just think of the cost savings then!